Moving On
by pippermint
Summary: One morning, Winry has a revelation that allows her to move forward. Was going to be a story, now is a ONESHOT.


**Chapter 1: First Light**

Night followed day, slipping over the horizon right on time. The moon shone dully above the world of Amestris, watching all: the lovers slipping away to private places, the children immersed in sleep, and the woeful face of one Winry Rockbell. She sat in bed, covers pulled up to her waist, back firmly against the headboard. Long hair cascaded down over a baby-blue nightgown the same shade as her eyes, if a trace darker. But the eyes, alas, the eyes were haunted. Tearstains traced their cruel way down her cheeks, but now her eyes were dry. More than anything, she wished that they weren't. She wished that the millions of tears she'd cried could solve her problems; she knew that they would solve nothing. Her tears were as pointless as every other aspect of her life.

Since… since… she stifled the tears that had threatened to come anew. Since the Elrics had come and gone again. Since Pinako had died, leaving her to run the automail business into the ground. Since Roze had returned to Lior. Since Sheska had gone back to the military in Central. Since Izumi had died, and Sig had left forever, along with the troubled one, Wrath. Since everything, basically. Again she stifled the tears, knowing that with them would come the waves of self-pity that she despised. Shivering, she lay down, face pointed towards the window. The sheets rustled softly, pitifully, as if knowing her pain.

Again she tried to remind herself that things could be worse. She had her health, for sure. Barely been sick a day in her life. And she had her few friends in Risembool. If she could call those people friends. Fair-weather friends at best. They wouldn't understand, they couldn't ever understand the things that she had been through… no one in this place could.

He could, though. Edward. She spoke the name to herself, silently, like a prayer. With the name, memories sprang unbidden behind her closing eyes.

_Two boys running home to their mother after playing with a little girl under the oak tree which still stood outside her bedroom window…_

_Two boys, one with longer and lighter hair than the other, crouched on the edge of a complicated circle in her dining room…_

_The fever in his eyes when he first spoke the word homunculus, not yet knowing the full meaning or consequences…_

_Two boys silhouetted against the setting sun, one standing by his kneeling brother as they grieved for their fallen mother…_

_Standing out in the rain, a monstrous suit of armor carrying in its gray arms the form of a boy, his body not whole…_

_The angry tears in her eyes whenever they said goodbye again, not knowing whether it would be the last time…_

Winry dozed into fitful sleep, and the moon slipped lower in the sky. It was nearly dawn now; she hadn't gone to bed until well after midnight. Cool autumn air slipped in from between the old windowpanes, chilling but not yet waking her. She shivered again, clutching the blankets closer to her body in slumber. Outside, a branch weighted down by age crumbled and fell, hitting the ground with a grass-muffled thump. Winry stirred from slumber, unbidden and unwanted tears slipping from her puffy eyes at last. She wiped them away as quickly as they came, sitting up again. The haunted look did not leave her eyes, but rather intensified.

Truly, she felt like a ghost, a shell of her former self. Winry was a woman of action, but what does such a person do when there is no action that can be taken? Surely not this. Surely she wasn't supposed to be curled up in bed with insomnia, waiting for lightning to strike. Winry stared at the wall opposite her bed blankly, as if it held the answers. When none came, she took the lamp from her bedside table, yanked it roughly above her head, and threw it with as much force as she could muster in her current state. Being Winry Rockbell, this meant that the lamp got smashed up pretty well.

The noise of impact struck life into her dead eyes, and she tore the covers back, frantically getting up from her bed. Bare feet propelled her towards the closet, where sensible clothes were snatched from hangers. A dingy canvas suitcase was found underneath the bed, and into it the clothes went. From the nightstand drawer she pulled a small but heavy metal box that was closed and locked. The key went into the suitcase with it. Inside the box one could find countless photographs, each one a painful memory unto itself. But there was no way it could be left behind.

Stepping out of the nightgown in favor of a t-shirt, blouse and jeans, she pulled pillow-mussed hair back into a sloppy ponytail. The small mirror on top of her dresser reflected the reckless and wonderful feeling Winry felt coursing through her entire being. She was building up momentum now. From a bottom drawer she pulled a small wad of money, which was stuffed hastily into the inside pocket of the jacket that she now donned. The wrench that she always kept on the nightstand was stuffed into the suitcase, along with a few books and other belongings.

The canvas protested as she shut the suitcase, half-carrying, half dragging it out the door. Through the hallways she flew, feeling freer than she had in many months. She had been set free of this house, once her home, now her prison of lonely, joyless existence. Laughter rang out as she pushed out of the front door, knowing as she did that never would she return to this place. But it wasn't enough to leave, somehow. As she looked around outside, she saw the charred and weed-conquered remains of the old Elric house sitting on the hill._ Wouldn't it be nice to give that place some company?_ She thought with a twisted, sad smile. Better to not leave traces, after all. Dropping the suitcase on the lawn, she dashed back inside. Through the kitchen cabinets she went until she found them, sitting against some coffee mugs.

The matches ignited the moment she struck them against the box. Twin flames, reminding her at first of two similar-looking blond boys, then the man who could pervert flames. With anger she flung them away from herself towards the back of the house, then ran outside.

Winry watched from a distance as her home first smoldered, then burned to the ground, joining at last its neighbor. She carried wildflowers, and before she went down to the main town she visited two people on the crest of another hill. Wiping what she promised would be the final tears from her pale cheeks, she laid some flowers down for each person: one a mother for two, the other a grandmother for one.

The sun rose, bringing pink light to the dim blue sky. Without a plan for the future, Winry Rockbell turned her back to her past with the conflicting smells of morning dew and acrid smoke in her nose.

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A/N: Well? This can either be a oneshot or an ongoing story, so tell me what you think.


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